Bucky’s response is quick, instinctive, ready to reassure her and say that that’s not what SWORD has planned — but even before all of the words are out of his mouth, he’s already trailing off and cutting himself short, the gears in his head turning.
Because. Would they?
Through Sam, they’ve had access to some of the operational files on Westview. They’d heard what had happened with Wanda. SWORD dissecting Vision’s corpse and picking over his body to see how he ticked, when he had once been their comrade, one of the heroes of the Battle for Earth. And Bucky’s been on the other end of that lab table, too: scientists had once hooked up sensors to him, a bit in his mouth, readings on the monitors, measuring his metabolism and stamina and strength. The effectiveness of their serum.
SWORD wasn’t HYDRA — but that’s what people had said about SHIELD once, too.
He’s quiet for too long. Contemplative. Starting to question his mission; he’s had so many years of blindly following orders and fulfilling his mission.
(So apparently I’m still a gun.)
“What do you want?” he asks, after a moment. “A phonecall to the Guardians of the Galaxy and to hitch a ride off-planet with them, or what?”
It's her turn to be quiet for just a little too long. Because that's what she should want, isn't it? Those people are, as they would tell it, her family. They've protected the galaxy with this world's original Gamora by their side for years now. Her sister is with them.
Except that's not her sister - her sister is the one who was shot unceremoniously. Her sister is dead. She never reconciled with this Nebula like her other self did. And she doesn't know these people. Knows they see the memory of someone she never was, instead of the person she is, who never slipped out from under Thanos' thumb on her own until the big battle came a lot sooner than planned and she had to make a stand.
A slow exhale.
"No."
It sounds more like 'I don't know' than she intended. She knows that she doesn't want the Guardians to pick her up. Doesn't want to be their replacement for a dead woman. Doesn't want to be taken by SWORD. Beyond that...
She tries to pivot back. Tries to press that hesitation in his voice from earlier.
"They didn't tell you, did they? What they could harvest from me. What promises they see in my blood and in my implants." Her voice goes quiet, but also sharper. "People talk before they die. I know what they want. So why don't you?"
Later on, they’ll have cause to notice those similarities between their unique situations: the way some friends could look at them and think they love them, but they’re still seeing someone long-dead, someone they aren’t.
Much later on.
But for now, it’s like Gamora’s jamming in a fulcrum and pressing down, finding that splinter and levering him open.
Bucky shifts in his position, cranes a head up and over the edge of the dented metal; he can’t get a good angle on it, can’t see where she’s holed up in her sniper nest, but she doesn’t take another warning shot either. He sinks back down again behind cover, thinking. Trying to think.
How much does he trust the people holding his leash? Not very. He pretty much trusts no one these days. It’s a grand list of one, lately.
“It wasn’t included in the mission brief,” he says, but there’s that rising questioning note in his voice, a kind of quiet bitterness. This ground is too familiar. He’s been aimed and pointed at too many situations like this before.
“People like to leave shit out when they think it’s need-to-know.”
She watches through her scope. Watches that slim chance of escape widen. Watches the doubt grow, like cancer.
"That's alright."
Quiet. Like a blade in the dark. Like a trap poised to be sprung.
"I was someone's pet assassin, too."
She can offer him that much.
"They sent you because they will take me dead, not just alive. They think you can kill me. What do you think they could want me for when it doesnt matter whether I breathe? You km now the answer. You know you're here to pull the trigger and bring them something useful. They didnt send you for your personality."
The brief had said dead or alive. Can he kill her? Maybe. Super-strength against augmented strength, his quick reflexes against her enhanced ones, vibranium arm against cybernetic implants. He stands the best chance out of anyone else they could’ve sent, but it would be a very close fight. He would not come out of it unscathed; he’d be hurt, injured, bleeding, maybe even close to death himself. The two assassins would be evenly-matched. He’d carved his way through human targets over the course of his gruesome career, but Gamora Zen Whoberi Ben Titan was not a human target. She’d give him a run for his money. He’s not even sure if he would walk away from it alive.
So why, after everything, should he lay down his life in service of this shit mission?
It turns out that once you’ve betrayed one cause, it’s easier to do it again, easier to claw your way out of that rut and finally, agonisingly, conceive of something outside of blind obedience. He’s walked away from worse masters with shorter tempers and deeper vindictiveness. All it had taken last time was splitting his knuckles open on Steve Rogers’ teeth. This time—
Bucky puts the safety on his rifle back on. (A distinctive click, audible to someone with enhanced hearing.) And he slings it back into the holster on his back, no longer immediately to hand, a weapon sheathed.
Outside the warehouse, SWORD has an eye on both of their blurry heat signatures (and the ones of agents now gone, their bodies slowly cooling), but they don’t have a clear view on the assets. They don’t have ears on the facility.
So Bucky raises his hands first, fingers reaching for the sky, as he slowly rises up behind that cover and puts his skull back into plain view. Open palms, unarmed, a white flag. A truce.
Gamora's eyes slide close for a moment at that sound, her small sigh of relief tucked away beneath it. Reprieve, at least for now. It almost burns, the thought of standing down from the fight she's been entrenched in for weeks now. The thought that maybe this could be truth instead of just another attempt at a trap. That she could slip the noose. Because her thoughts run similar to his. For all that Gamora easily tosses out assurances that she would kill him if he tried her, she has seen enough of him on that battlefield against Thanos and his forces not to actually think of a fight between them as anything short of brutal and potentially lethal even for her. And even if she did survive - the damage someone like him could inflict on her knows few measures.
When her eyes open again, she watches him raise a hand from his cover, then lift his head. Trains the sights on him and watches him through him for a moment. Lets the moment drag. He doesn't duck back down - either very foolish or very good at bluffing.
Or perhaps just... good. Perhaps just honest.
Gamora isn't sure she can believe that.
It's only after that long, drawn out pause that Bucky will hear her safety snap back on as well, almost loud to their kinds of ears in the silence of the warehouse. And then she moves, too. Leaves cover and lets him see her. With the rifle on her back, she's far from unarmed though, and lets him see that her hand is on something on her hip - Godslayer, should he get too close to comfort and make any moves she doesn't like seeing. From his perspective that might as well be a blaster. For now though, she makes eye contact with him.
Gamora is exhausted, and visibly so. Doesn't look like she's slept in far too long. Her sharp features are almost gaunt, and the green skin much less vibrant with the pallor of exhaustion. There's blood spattered on her - and clearly not all of it her own.
"Would you like me to strike you, so you can claim I bested you and slipped out of your grasp? Would that make them let you survive failure?"
It might not sound it at first glance, but she's trying to do him a favour here, is trying to show him honor and help ensure he doesn't suffer punishment for letting her go. It's a messed up way of saying thank you - but the thought counts, right?
This is a wild leap of optimism. He’s usually a cynic, but sometimes that old faith in something better shines through, some vestigial instinct which sounds an awful lot like Steve’s voice in the back of his head, the invisible Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder: you should try trusting people once in a while, Buck.
And he looks up and up across the warehouse, to meet Gamora’s eye. Catches the glint of metal at her hip. He wonders what it’d be like to fight someone with a sword; of all the things he’s done in his over-long life, that hadn’t been ticked off the bucket list. Yet.
He considers the offer she’s made, and continues doing that math.
“You can’t just walk out the front door, even if I turn back with a black eye,” Bucky says. The wheels are turning, waiting to catch on an idea. Because Gamora’s back is to the wall and there really isn’t an easy way out of this location — the authorities have the building surrounded.
Except.
Except that when he got the brief, he also got detailed blueprints of the building, which she wouldn’t have had access to. It mapped air ducts, basement passages, maintenance hallways.
A potential way out.
The pause goes on a bit too long, and then: “You’re not gonna be able to get out of here alone,” he says. “But I know a route.”
She wants to fight him on that, to protest. Of course she can walk out the front door just like that. Slaughter her way through their forces and...
Well. And die. Gamora knows the odds are not in her favour, no matter how it raises her hackles to have anything to that tune suggested to her.
"You know a route."
The words hang between them for a moment. To those outside it looks like they must be squaring off. Like perhaps Bucky is talking her down, into coming willingly so he doesn't need to kill her. The situation is tense and might yet come to blows. Of course, that is not the case.
Gamora presses her lips together, briefly.
"You would do this for me?"
A simple question about the things he is putting on the table, the sacrifice he's willing to make. It astonishes her - the implication of a kindness of that scope. He might yet betray her. Lead her to presumed safety only to avoid an outright fight.
But sometimes... sometimes hope is too sweet to ignore in favor of the distrust that was nurtured in her. She's seen him after all, fighting alongside so many who had rallied to save the lives of millions at their own peril, for no reward and little glory.
It’s a big jump; almost impossibly large, to imagine that he’d do this for someone who doesn’t even know him. Set aside everything he currently knows, burn up his current life and set it ablaze, sacrifice it in order to give Gamora a safe way out. It might seem saintly. Why would he do this for her?
But that’s the whole point.
The corner of Bucky’s mouth flickers; a little sad, a little rueful, a little set in his ways. “Someone else did the same thing for me, once,” he says. “I’m just paying it forward.”
Steve had offered him a way out. Steve had reached out a hand. The circumstances weren’t exactly the same, but he’s got this debt hanging around his throat and if there’s at all a chance he can save another assassin, another cornered animal who doesn’t have to die—
Bucky’s made up his mind. He reaches to the SWORD earpiece that he can activate at a touch, but instead he just takes it out, drops it to the floor. Stands ready with his heavy boot to smash it, as soon as she says yes. If she says yes.
“I was getting tired of the leash anyway,” he adds.
That... is something he will have to get used to with her. The way she will absolutely not understand the turns of phrases that are so common on Earth. And the way she will correct him almost gently - though something with a good dose of annoyance - on these things.
For now...
She moves fast. He drops the earpiece, waits for her response. Gamora gives it by way of stepping on the earpiece herself, crushing it underfoot.
"Do not make me regret this."
A warning, calm but fierce. She means that, very clearly. Is still poised to strike at the wrong move, but for now... nods, after a deep breath, to signal that she's in agreement with his plan. That she will follow him. And hope for her own sake that this man is worth his word.
“Likewise,” Bucky says, with a flash of teeth. They both know the risks and the score. They’re metaphorically holding hands and both walking off the edge of a cliff, with nothing else but the blind hope that there’ll be solid ground to catch you below.
The earpiece shatters underfoot, and he sets off through the warehouse. He doesn’t like having Gamora walking behind him — that sword could so easily slip between his shoulder-blades — but he does need to take the front and lead the way through what he’s memorised of the blueprints.
And this trust is a two-way street. He could be taking her out back to where a secondary team is waiting; he could be leading her into a trap.
But he doesn’t, is the thing.
It takes a few minutes before SWORD realises that they can’t raise Barnes on the comms. Even longer before they send in one anxious agent to check for him, expecting to find the Winter Soldier dead, only to see that he’s —
gone, just gone, the pair of assassins vanished into the maintenance tunnels as if they were never here.
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no subject
Bucky’s response is quick, instinctive, ready to reassure her and say that that’s not what SWORD has planned — but even before all of the words are out of his mouth, he’s already trailing off and cutting himself short, the gears in his head turning.
Because. Would they?
Through Sam, they’ve had access to some of the operational files on Westview. They’d heard what had happened with Wanda. SWORD dissecting Vision’s corpse and picking over his body to see how he ticked, when he had once been their comrade, one of the heroes of the Battle for Earth. And Bucky’s been on the other end of that lab table, too: scientists had once hooked up sensors to him, a bit in his mouth, readings on the monitors, measuring his metabolism and stamina and strength. The effectiveness of their serum.
SWORD wasn’t HYDRA — but that’s what people had said about SHIELD once, too.
He’s quiet for too long. Contemplative. Starting to question his mission; he’s had so many years of blindly following orders and fulfilling his mission.
(So apparently I’m still a gun.)
“What do you want?” he asks, after a moment. “A phonecall to the Guardians of the Galaxy and to hitch a ride off-planet with them, or what?”
no subject
Except that's not her sister - her sister is the one who was shot unceremoniously. Her sister is dead. She never reconciled with this Nebula like her other self did. And she doesn't know these people. Knows they see the memory of someone she never was, instead of the person she is, who never slipped out from under Thanos' thumb on her own until the big battle came a lot sooner than planned and she had to make a stand.
A slow exhale.
"No."
It sounds more like 'I don't know' than she intended. She knows that she doesn't want the Guardians to pick her up. Doesn't want to be their replacement for a dead woman. Doesn't want to be taken by SWORD. Beyond that...
She tries to pivot back. Tries to press that hesitation in his voice from earlier.
"They didn't tell you, did they? What they could harvest from me. What promises they see in my blood and in my implants." Her voice goes quiet, but also sharper. "People talk before they die. I know what they want. So why don't you?"
no subject
Much later on.
But for now, it’s like Gamora’s jamming in a fulcrum and pressing down, finding that splinter and levering him open.
Bucky shifts in his position, cranes a head up and over the edge of the dented metal; he can’t get a good angle on it, can’t see where she’s holed up in her sniper nest, but she doesn’t take another warning shot either. He sinks back down again behind cover, thinking. Trying to think.
How much does he trust the people holding his leash? Not very. He pretty much trusts no one these days. It’s a grand list of one, lately.
“It wasn’t included in the mission brief,” he says, but there’s that rising questioning note in his voice, a kind of quiet bitterness. This ground is too familiar. He’s been aimed and pointed at too many situations like this before.
“People like to leave shit out when they think it’s need-to-know.”
no subject
"That's alright."
Quiet. Like a blade in the dark. Like a trap poised to be sprung.
"I was someone's pet assassin, too."
She can offer him that much.
"They sent you because they will take me dead, not just alive. They think you can kill me. What do you think they could want me for when it doesnt matter whether I breathe? You km now the answer. You know you're here to pull the trigger and bring them something useful. They didnt send you for your personality."
no subject
The brief had said dead or alive. Can he kill her? Maybe. Super-strength against augmented strength, his quick reflexes against her enhanced ones, vibranium arm against cybernetic implants. He stands the best chance out of anyone else they could’ve sent, but it would be a very close fight. He would not come out of it unscathed; he’d be hurt, injured, bleeding, maybe even close to death himself. The two assassins would be evenly-matched. He’d carved his way through human targets over the course of his gruesome career, but Gamora Zen Whoberi Ben Titan was not a human target. She’d give him a run for his money. He’s not even sure if he would walk away from it alive.
So why, after everything, should he lay down his life in service of this shit mission?
It turns out that once you’ve betrayed one cause, it’s easier to do it again, easier to claw your way out of that rut and finally, agonisingly, conceive of something outside of blind obedience. He’s walked away from worse masters with shorter tempers and deeper vindictiveness. All it had taken last time was splitting his knuckles open on Steve Rogers’ teeth. This time—
Bucky puts the safety on his rifle back on. (A distinctive click, audible to someone with enhanced hearing.) And he slings it back into the holster on his back, no longer immediately to hand, a weapon sheathed.
Outside the warehouse, SWORD has an eye on both of their blurry heat signatures (and the ones of agents now gone, their bodies slowly cooling), but they don’t have a clear view on the assets. They don’t have ears on the facility.
So Bucky raises his hands first, fingers reaching for the sky, as he slowly rises up behind that cover and puts his skull back into plain view. Open palms, unarmed, a white flag. A truce.
no subject
When her eyes open again, she watches him raise a hand from his cover, then lift his head. Trains the sights on him and watches him through him for a moment. Lets the moment drag. He doesn't duck back down - either very foolish or very good at bluffing.
Or perhaps just... good. Perhaps just honest.
Gamora isn't sure she can believe that.
It's only after that long, drawn out pause that Bucky will hear her safety snap back on as well, almost loud to their kinds of ears in the silence of the warehouse. And then she moves, too. Leaves cover and lets him see her. With the rifle on her back, she's far from unarmed though, and lets him see that her hand is on something on her hip - Godslayer, should he get too close to comfort and make any moves she doesn't like seeing. From his perspective that might as well be a blaster. For now though, she makes eye contact with him.
Gamora is exhausted, and visibly so. Doesn't look like she's slept in far too long. Her sharp features are almost gaunt, and the green skin much less vibrant with the pallor of exhaustion. There's blood spattered on her - and clearly not all of it her own.
"Would you like me to strike you, so you can claim I bested you and slipped out of your grasp? Would that make them let you survive failure?"
It might not sound it at first glance, but she's trying to do him a favour here, is trying to show him honor and help ensure he doesn't suffer punishment for letting her go. It's a messed up way of saying thank you - but the thought counts, right?
no subject
And he looks up and up across the warehouse, to meet Gamora’s eye. Catches the glint of metal at her hip. He wonders what it’d be like to fight someone with a sword; of all the things he’s done in his over-long life, that hadn’t been ticked off the bucket list. Yet.
He considers the offer she’s made, and continues doing that math.
“You can’t just walk out the front door, even if I turn back with a black eye,” Bucky says. The wheels are turning, waiting to catch on an idea. Because Gamora’s back is to the wall and there really isn’t an easy way out of this location — the authorities have the building surrounded.
Except.
Except that when he got the brief, he also got detailed blueprints of the building, which she wouldn’t have had access to. It mapped air ducts, basement passages, maintenance hallways.
A potential way out.
The pause goes on a bit too long, and then: “You’re not gonna be able to get out of here alone,” he says. “But I know a route.”
no subject
Well. And die. Gamora knows the odds are not in her favour, no matter how it raises her hackles to have anything to that tune suggested to her.
"You know a route."
The words hang between them for a moment. To those outside it looks like they must be squaring off. Like perhaps Bucky is talking her down, into coming willingly so he doesn't need to kill her. The situation is tense and might yet come to blows. Of course, that is not the case.
Gamora presses her lips together, briefly.
"You would do this for me?"
A simple question about the things he is putting on the table, the sacrifice he's willing to make. It astonishes her - the implication of a kindness of that scope. He might yet betray her. Lead her to presumed safety only to avoid an outright fight.
But sometimes... sometimes hope is too sweet to ignore in favor of the distrust that was nurtured in her. She's seen him after all, fighting alongside so many who had rallied to save the lives of millions at their own peril, for no reward and little glory.
"You would save me?"
no subject
But that’s the whole point.
The corner of Bucky’s mouth flickers; a little sad, a little rueful, a little set in his ways. “Someone else did the same thing for me, once,” he says. “I’m just paying it forward.”
Steve had offered him a way out. Steve had reached out a hand. The circumstances weren’t exactly the same, but he’s got this debt hanging around his throat and if there’s at all a chance he can save another assassin, another cornered animal who doesn’t have to die—
Bucky’s made up his mind. He reaches to the SWORD earpiece that he can activate at a touch, but instead he just takes it out, drops it to the floor. Stands ready with his heavy boot to smash it, as soon as she says yes. If she says yes.
“I was getting tired of the leash anyway,” he adds.
no subject
That... is something he will have to get used to with her. The way she will absolutely not understand the turns of phrases that are so common on Earth. And the way she will correct him almost gently - though something with a good dose of annoyance - on these things.
For now...
She moves fast. He drops the earpiece, waits for her response. Gamora gives it by way of stepping on the earpiece herself, crushing it underfoot.
"Do not make me regret this."
A warning, calm but fierce. She means that, very clearly. Is still poised to strike at the wrong move, but for now... nods, after a deep breath, to signal that she's in agreement with his plan. That she will follow him. And hope for her own sake that this man is worth his word.
wrap!
The earpiece shatters underfoot, and he sets off through the warehouse. He doesn’t like having Gamora walking behind him — that sword could so easily slip between his shoulder-blades — but he does need to take the front and lead the way through what he’s memorised of the blueprints.
And this trust is a two-way street. He could be taking her out back to where a secondary team is waiting; he could be leading her into a trap.
But he doesn’t, is the thing.
It takes a few minutes before SWORD realises that they can’t raise Barnes on the comms. Even longer before they send in one anxious agent to check for him, expecting to find the Winter Soldier dead, only to see that he’s —
gone, just gone, the pair of assassins vanished into the maintenance tunnels as if they were never here.